still can't see anything that looks like a relevant module in :
ls -al /lib/modules/2.6.8-2-686/kernel/net
or ...../drivers

... where does it put the mod and what is it called?

...and what exactly have i done so far? have i downgraded my kernel? i'm a bit confused? ??
I'm afraid to reboot, cause there were messages about LILO and ramdisks and stuff and i said yes to everything..... sorry for being a pain in the arse...

ah so thats where it is.../lib/modules/2.6.8-2/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter
ok .
apt-get just says iptables is the newest version so doesnt do anything...

LILO says it has 2 versions - linux and linuxOLD, will this be ok bearing in mind it will reboot in unattended mode (since i'm in the UK and it's in Florida)?

Thanx

So I recommend uninstalling kernel 2.4.18-bf2.4 and reinstalling iptables...

do apt-get remove kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4
and apt-get --reinstall install iptables
just to be sure you get compatible packages.

iptables & modutils need to be compiled against each kernel to make sure poiners etc get used properly,
that's why the kernel version never changes, but the kernel is still patched to the latest inside.

Follow the symlinks for the kernels described to be absolutely sure..
This is from the school of hard knocks..

I need to be somewhere shortly..

Do you want to pick this up again in the morning?

yeh i think yr right - i've had enough for one day!
Thanks a bundle

BTW when I try to do apt-get remove kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4
i get
Package kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4 is not installed, so not removed.

Ok, we'll see to that in the morning..

you go ahead with whatever u need 2 do - im gonna stop soon really!

thinks... i spose i could just comment out the linuxold entry in the lilo.conf file and re lilo-v it... or just change the timeout to 1 or something.... the default is the newer kernel.

thinks... for some reason i got the feeling that this system was using grub to boot, i don't know why.... i wonder how i could check that? or have i overridden that....

Running lilo will remove grub...
I find grub only useful if there are complex drive arrays etc to consider..

Which begs the next question...
The current hardware setup will need to be checked to make sure the correct modules will load.
Do lspci to get a short hardware list..
Do dmesg to read the boot messages, or if it's too old, read /var/log/dmesg to get a list of discovered/activated hardware..
Now do lsmod to see which modules, if any, are loaded to match the hardware..

Look for hardware that didn't have a module, eg IDE controller, NIC, vga..
This is a sign that these were compiled into the 2.6.10 kernel.
They will need to be corrected in /etc/modules.conf
The system will boot ok in a basic mode from either the initrd or kernel-image, but the kernel will need to be massaged to let it run full speed. eg dma isn't on by default in the early kernels. It's started by a script.

Also before reboot, make sure iptables isn't starting at boot.
Actually, make sure only sshd starts at boot until you are satisfied iptables works well.
If iptables does start, you may find yourself disconnected if they only half load..

I am surprised the older kernel 2.4.18-bf2.4 isn't installed..
Do dpkg -l kernel-image* again and look for ii in the left hand column.
That indicates it's installed.

kernel 2.4.18-bf2.4 has pn by it the onlyy ii is by the one i installed yesterday- kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686 ...

lsmod shows NO mods at all loaded...

Have removed iptables from /etc/init.d/ ...

checking boot message etc. now


(thanks so much for your help peter - your a star!)

lspci shows:

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8378 [KM400] Chipset Host Bridge
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI Bridge
0000:00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)
0000:00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
0000:00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
0000:00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
0000:00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 74)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8378 [S3 UniChrome] Integrated Video (rev 01)

/etc/modules.conf looks like below - what sort of lines am i looking for - i can't see anything that matches the hardware list above....??

### This file is automatically generated by update-modules"
#
# Please do not edit this file directly. If you want to change or add
# anything please take a look at the files in /etc/modutils and read
# the manpage for update-modules.
#
### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/0keep
# DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE!
# This file is not marked as conffile to make sure if you upgrade modutils
# it will be restored in case some modifications have been made.
#
# The keep command is necessary to prevent insmod and friends from ignoring
# the builtin defaults of a path-statement is encountered. Until all other
# packages use the new `add path'-statement this keep-statement is essential
# to keep your system working
keep

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/0keep

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/actions
# Special actions that are needed for some modules

# The BTTV module does not load the tuner module automatically,
# so do that in here
post-install bttv insmod tuner
post-remove bttv rmmod tuner


### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/actions

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/aliases
# Aliases to tell insmod/modprobe which modules to use

# Uncomment the network protocols you don't want loaded:
# alias net-pf-1 off # Unix
# alias net-pf-2 off # IPv4
# alias net-pf-3 off # Amateur Radio AX.25
# alias net-pf-4 off # IPX
# alias net-pf-5 off # DDP / appletalk
# alias net-pf-6 off # Amateur Radio NET/ROM
# alias net-pf-9 off # X.25
# alias net-pf-10 off # IPv6
# alias net-pf-11 off # ROSE / Amateur Radio X.25 PLP
# alias net-pf-19 off # Acorn Econet
alias net-pf-24 pppoe

alias char-major-10-175 agpgart
alias char-major-10-200 tun
alias char-major-81 bttv
alias char-major-108 ppp_generic
alias /dev/ppp ppp_generic
alias tty-ldisc-3 ppp_async
alias tty-ldisc-14 ppp_synctty
alias ppp-compress-21 bsd_comp
alias ppp-compress-24 ppp_deflate
alias ppp-compress-26 ppp_deflate

# Crypto modules (see http://www.kerneli.org/)
alias loop-xfer-gen-0 loop_gen
alias loop-xfer-3 loop_fish2
alias loop-xfer-gen-10 loop_gen
alias cipher-2 des
alias cipher-3 fish2
alias cipher-4 blowfish
alias cipher-6 idea
alias cipher-7 serp6f
alias cipher-8 mars6
alias cipher-11 rc62
alias cipher-15 dfc2
alias cipher-16 rijndael
alias cipher-17 rc5


### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/aliases

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/evms
alias block-major-117 dm-mod

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/evms

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/paths
# This file contains a list of paths that modprobe should scan,
# beside the ones that are compiled into the modutils tools
# themselves.


### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/paths

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/ppp
alias /dev/ppp ppp_generic
alias char-major-108 ppp_generic
alias tty-ldisc-3 ppp_async
alias tty-ldisc-14 ppp_synctty
alias ppp-compress-21 bsd_comp
alias ppp-compress-24 ppp_deflate
alias ppp-compress-26 ppp_deflate

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/ppp

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/setserial
#
# This is what I wanted to do, but logger is in /usr/bin, which isn't loaded
# when the module is first loaded into the kernel at boot time!
#
#post-install serial /etc/init.d/setserial start | logger -p daemon.info -t "setserial-module reload"
#pre-remove serial /etc/init.d/setserial stop | logger -p daemon.info -t "setserial-module uload"
#
alias /dev/tts serial
alias /dev/tts/0 serial
alias /dev/tts/1 serial
alias /dev/tts/2 serial
alias /dev/tts/3 serial
post-install serial /etc/init.d/setserial modload > /dev/null 2> /dev/null
pre-remove serial /etc/init.d/setserial modsave > /dev/null 2> /dev/null

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/setserial

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/arch/i386
alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc
alias char-major-10-144 nvram
alias binfmt-0064 binfmt_aout
alias char-major-10-135 rtc

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/arch/i386

Looking for char-major entries describing hardware..
Not much to see there!

And from lsmod & /var/log/dmesg ?
Read through /var/log/dmesg and look for anything not noted in lspci. or lsmod

<lsmod shows NO mods at all loaded...>


dmesg looks like this:


Linux version 2.6.10 (root@debian) (gcc version 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-5)) #1 Mon Jan 17 08:57:11 EST 2005
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000000eff0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000eff0000 - 000000000eff3000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 000000000eff3000 - 000000000f000000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
239MB LOWMEM available.
found SMP MP-table at 000f6550
On node 0 totalpages: 61424
DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:1
Normal zone: 57328 pages, LIFO batch:13
HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:1
DMI 2.3 present.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 KM400 ) @ 0x000f7f50
ACPI: RSDT (v001 KM400 AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x0eff3000
ACPI: FADT (v001 KM400 AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x0eff3040
ACPI: MADT (v001 KM400 AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x0eff7580
ACPI: DSDT (v001 KM400 AWRDACPI 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000e) @ 0x00000000
ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x00] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)
Processor #0 6:8 APIC version 16
ACPI: LAPIC_NMI (acpi_id[0x00] high edge lint[0x1])
ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x02] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0])
IOAPIC[0]: apic_id 2, version 3, address 0xfec00000, GSI 0-23
ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 0 global_irq 2 dfl dfl)
ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 9 global_irq 9 dfl dfl)
ACPI: IRQ0 used by override.
ACPI: IRQ2 used by override.
ACPI: IRQ9 used by override.
Enabling APIC mode: Flat. Using 1 I/O APICs
Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda2 ro
mapped APIC to ffffd000 (fee00000)
mapped IOAPIC to ffffc000 (fec00000)
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 1024 (order: 10, 16384 bytes)
Detected 1799.542 MHz processor.
Using tsc for high-res timesource
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Memory: 239348k/245696k available (2297k kernel code, 5844k reserved, 927k data, 196k init, 0k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay loop... 3530.75 BogoMIPS (lpj=1765376)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 256K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: After all inits, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000020
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2200+ stepping 01
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
ENABLING IO-APIC IRQs
..TIMER: vector=0x31 pin1=2 pin2=-1
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfbcc0, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20041105
ACPI: Interpreter enabled
ACPI: Using IOAPIC for interrupt routing
ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (00:00)
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 *11 12)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 *11 12)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 *10 11 12)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12) *5
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK0] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK1] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKA] (IRQs 20) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKB] (IRQs 21) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKC] (IRQs 22) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKD] (IRQs 23) *0, disabled.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
pnp: PnP ACPI init
pnp: PnP ACPI: found 10 devices
SCSI subsystem initialized
PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
** PCI interrupts are no longer routed automatically. If this
** causes a device to stop working, it is probably because the
** driver failed to call pci_enable_device(). As a temporary
** workaround, the "pci=routeirq" argument restores the old
** behavior. If this argument makes the device work again,
** please email the output of "lspci" to bjorn.helgaas@hp.com
** so I can fix the driver.
pnp: 00:01: ioport range 0x4000-0x407f could not be reserved
pnp: 00:01: ioport range 0x5000-0x500f has been reserved
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
via-rhine.c:v1.10-LK1.2.0-2.6 June-10-2004 Written by Donald Becker
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKD] BIOS reported IRQ 0, using IRQ 23
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKD] enabled at IRQ 23
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:12.0[A] -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 23
eth0: VIA Rhine II at 0xe400, 00:0c:76:c0:45:66, IRQ 23.
eth0: MII PHY found at address 1, status 0x7869 advertising 05e1 Link 41e1.
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:11.1
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKA] BIOS reported IRQ 0, using IRQ 20
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKA] enabled at IRQ 20
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:11.1[A] -> GSI 20 (level, low) -> IRQ 20
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
VP_IDE: VIA vt8235 (rev 00) IDE UDMA133 controller on pci0000:00:11.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xdc00-0xdc07, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xdc08-0xdc0f, BIOS settings: hdcio, hddio
Probing IDE interface ide0...
hda: SAMSUNG SP0411N, ATA DISK drive
elevator: using anticipatory as default io scheduler
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
Probing IDE interface ide1...
Probing IDE interface ide1...
Probing IDE interface ide2...
ide2: Wait for ready failed before probe !
Probing IDE interface ide3...
ide3: Wait for ready failed before probe !
Probing IDE interface ide4...
ide4: Wait for ready failed before probe !
Probing IDE interface ide5...
ide5: Wait for ready failed before probe !
hda: max request size: 1024KiB
hda: 78242976 sectors (40060 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=16383/255/63
hda: cache flushes supported
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3
Red Hat/Adaptec aacraid driver (1.1.2-lk2 Jan 17 2005)
3ware Storage Controller device driver for Linux v1.26.02.000.
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
md: raid1 personality registered as nr 3
md: md driver 0.90.1 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 32768)
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 196k freed
Adding 1951888k swap on /dev/hda3. Priority:-1 extents:1
EXT3 FS on hda2, internal journal
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS on hda1, internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x41E1

Ok, give me a chance to digest this..

Please also post contents of
ls -l /proc/ide/
cat /proc/ide/drivers
ls -l /proc/driver/
ls -l /proc/net/

Ta..

yr welcome... (wish i was rich so i could pay you what your time is REALLY worth

ls -l /proc/ide/
total 1
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:34 drivers
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Feb 23 11:34 hda -> ide0/hda
dr-xr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Feb 23 11:34 ide0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:34 via

cat /proc/ide/drivers
ide-cdrom version 4.61
ide-disk version 1.18


ls -l /proc/driver/
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:35 rtc


ls -l /proc/net/
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 arp
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 dev
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 dev_mcast
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 igmp
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 mcfilter
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 netlink
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 netstat
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 packet
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 raw
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 route
dr-xr-xr-x 4 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 rpc
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 rt_cache
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 snmp
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 sockstat
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 softnet_stat
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 stat
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 tcp
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 udp
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 23 11:36 unix